Cutthroat Trout

[Tryin2Fish]

A question for the knowlegable ones (certainly isn't me), We were out at buoy 1 yesterday (thursday) where I got a nice coho almost immediately, then it seems we drifted into a school of small looking fish with spots on their back of which I thought might be cutthroat trout. If they are not please let me know. Anyway these things were everywhere and just hammering out bait.

I was looking in the regs just now and for the columbia river zone (from buoy 10 going east) it says that you can keep a limit of 2 fin clipped cutthroats. I did not find however what restrictions there are in the ocean. I have always heard of the sea run cutthroat and it always being catch and release but apparently on the big river this is not always the case. So the question was were these fish sea run cutthroats? They looked just like a trout with the dark specles on their back and ranged in size between 12-18 inches. Has anyone else caught these little guys? They would probably be fun on a light set up.

Jim

[Jennie@ifish]

This is Bill Hedlund on Jennie's machine.
Most likely, you saw coho jacks.
Possibly, you could have encountered mackerel.
Did you catch them?
Are you sure they were salmonids?
If so, they were most likely jacks, minimum length 16 inches.
There just aren't enough cutthroats to be found in such schools.

Bill

[Tryin2Fish]

They defineately looked like the salmonid species, I must have caught 4 or so and my friend caught a couple. I did not know that jacks were in such concentration as I have never caught any before. So, what it sounds like is that we threw back some possible small coho's that we might have kept depending on the size. The whole concept of jack salmon confuses me, it seems that there are no jack salmon on the columbia as they are considered small coho however in places like the nehalem I think the limit is 5 jack salmon per day.

Gotta love the rules.

thanks for the info.

Jim

[WildHawg]

Howdy,
I was out near the CR bouy on Thursday, where we landed at least six small Chinook (14-18 inches) and 2 Coho jacks that I can recall. My best guess is that you were landing them. In 30 years of fishing in the ocean off of Oregon, I have caught some strange things (Steelhead, Pink Salmon, King Mackerel, Bonita, Barracuda, Sunfish--he was snagged) but I do not recall ever landing a searun Cutthroat. Remenber, even if they were "Jacks" in terms of size, in the ocean, they are considered "feeders". Rules for Cutthroat, and any jacks you may catch, apply only in the river itself--not in the ocean. Double check the regs, and brush up on your fish ID. It'll save you a pile of money (fines). Good luck.